Q2Mark Expands Brand Development
Outsourced Consulting and Creative Marketing Leadership: Product Development Niche Expansion and Revenue Growth of Hawaiian Coffee Fruit Pioneer
Outsourced Consulting and Creative Marketing Leadership: Product Development Niche Expansion and Revenue Growth of Hawaiian Coffee Fruit Pioneer
Kyle Redfield
President and Chief Operating Officer
KonaRed Corporation
Q2Mark developed and implemented award-winning package and label solutions to uniquely position KonaRed’s innovative coffee and ready-to-drink cold brew and executed a fully integrated marketing plan that uniquely positioned the company at the top of a saturated marketplace.
• Beverage World BevStar Award
• The Gourmet Retailer Best New Product Editor’s Pick
• SupplySide West CPG Editor’s Choice Award Finalist
KonaRed® Corporation is a Hawaiian coffee company and the pioneer of the USA grown, Hawaiian coffee fruit. The company oversees a vertically integrated supply chain, which starts with the highest quality coffee and coffee fruit from Kona, Hawaii. The company produces three award winning Ready-to-Drink (RTD) cold brew coffee varieties, 100% Kona coffee beans, plus its well established RTD antioxidant juices and 100% Hawaiian coffee fruit powders. KonaRed Corp. also has an industrial ingredients supply division. KonaRed products are sold throughout the U.S. and can be found in select Vons, Albertsons, Pavilions, Ralphs, Fred Meyer, King Soopers, Smiths, Kroger, Safeway, Vitamin Shoppe, Target, Whole Foods, 7-Eleven and many other retail outlets.
In 2008, KonaRed pioneered a sustainable supply chain that uses a byproduct of the coffee production, the fruit surrounding the world-famous Kona coffee bean, and successfully turned this former waste stream into steady revenue for coffee farmers. Surpassing initial B2B raw ingredient sales initiatives and later expansion into the consumer health & wellness and food & beverage markets, their team worked with multiple sources to execute their marketing tactics.
Having worked with me to help launch and grow their ingredient business for six years, executive management turned to my experience as a Chief Marketing Executive (CME) knowing my skill set and trusting my understanding of both the KonaRed brand and their target markets.
Having already been engaged for several years, I quickly began to evaluate KonaRed’s situation and audited their current position and plans. While working on their deliverables and tactics, I also provided consulting services to implement best business practices for investor relations, B2B communications, inbound marketing, regulator, packaging, social media and sales tools.
Effective marketing includes accurately identifying audiences, their drivers, and then developing tailored content that is specifically designed to engage and resonate. This content needs to be released at the right time, and in the right format, to ensure that the targeted decision-makers are reached, understand the message and respond. Although there are differences between consumers, investors and stockholders and B2B audiences, there are opportunities to integrate each in the sales process and offer more value-add perspectives for greater results.
For KonaRed’s small, robust team, I provided tools and resources to maximize productivity, improve communications, project management processes and ultimately increase results.
Coffee from Kona, Hawai’i is known for being the best tasting coffee in the world and is estimated as a $30 billion industry in the U.S. alone. Q2Mark designed KonaRed’s new product, Kona Coffee, to launch in a saturated marketplace, while attracting their target audience and expanding their consumer niche.
While working on the development and release of the Kona Coffee, there was another product on the table set to launch, KonaRed’s Cold Brew Ready-to-Drink Beverages. Q2Mark was already one step ahead, prepared to present not just more great designs, but designs that would contribute to KonaRed’s award-winning product development.
Susie audited the competition and knew there was an opportunity for KonaRed to set themselves apart in the market while staying true to their brand image – they could do something cool, fun, fresh and unique. Q2Mark proposed:
Social media is a perfect tool for KonaRed to not only build their lifestyle fan base, but also drive sales, business initiatives, promote partnerships, gather data about their audience and help with product launches. KonaRed was doing a great job developing their Instagram and Facebook communities, but were underutilizing social media as a sales tool.
To correct this, I started by developing KonaRed’s social media strategy and policies. Then, I worked to train their team and introduced them to Hootsuite as an effective management tool to help monitor multiple social media streams, schedule posts in advance, easily view analytics, team collaboration and manage customer service.
I proposed designs and promotions to ensure KonaRed’s social media presence was not just a lifestyle brand tool, but was also a strategic vehicle driving awareness, fans, followers, relationships and business to KonaRed.
Getting back to their coffee roots, KonaRed is now positioned as an innovator in the coffee industry with the growth and expansion of their Kona Coffee and Cold Brew Ready-to-Drink beverages.
Within months of launching, the Cold Brew Ready-to-Drink beverages won three awards: The 2016 Beverage World BevStar Award, The Gourmet Retailer 2016 Editors’ Pick and SupplySide West 2016 CPG Editors’ Choice. All of these awards are based on, among other categories, the innovation in packaging and positioning against the most important market and consumer trends.
Awarded and positioned as an innovation in the beverage industry, KonaRed’s Cold Brew Ready-to-Drink beverages were the first of their kind to take shelves of the Hawaiian Islands by storm, rapidly becoming a popular island favorite.
The new product launches and success in Hawaii propelled a rapid expansion to the west coast, signing distribution deals from San Diego to as far north as Seattle, and as far east as Las Vegas and Colorado with new product hitting the shelves every day.
With the fully-integrated marketing plan I put into place, KonaRed has the direction, tools, and content needed to pump out new promotional marketing tactics in each of these newly acquired distribution areas as they continue to push towards the East Coast.
760.459.9201
Susie@Q2Mark.com
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